Levi stood up and walked to the edge of the platform they were standing on. Taking a look there was a sharp immediate fall toward the bottom of the wherever they were. Levi sent Willow down to scout and see how far down the drop was, along with what was the fate at the bottom. While Willow was doing that, he gazed in front of him. Stalagmite of icy rock rose from the hazy depths of the cavern. There was no discernable pathway that they needed to take. The air was cold and still; it was eerie. Any drop of water from melting ice would echo throughout the entire chamber.
Quest: Icey Dungeon
You have accepted to participate in the dungeon Ice Stone Caverns
Complete Dungeon to gain reward
Progress (0/5) rooms
“Well,” Levi said, turning away from the edge. “We have five rooms to clear, and this is the first one.”
Piper and Anna both looked queasy, but their faces were returning to normal. Levi handed both of them a waterskin to drink from. They did so gratefully.
“Willow is scouting out the place,” Levi said. “It seems like we need to find the door. My guess is that the bottom will be deadly and there is a specific path we’ll have to follow.”
“Sounds reasonable,” Anna said.
“How are you okay?” Piper asked. “I still feel bad, but you look fine?”
“I breathed through it,” Levi said.
“Right breathing, how could I not think of that?” Piper said in mock recognition. Before Levi could respond, Willow had returned with a report. There was a door at the very bottom of the cavern, directly across from them, and at the top. The three of them thought about what to do.
“Do you think it matters?” Levi said.
“Most likely yes,” Anna said. “I don’t think we’ll fail but I think they’ll mean something.”
“Then let’s go to the hardest one to reach,” Levi said.
“Why?” Piper asked.
“If they really do mean something then maybe starting with easy will mean your path will be harder but starting off harder means your path would be easier,” Levi argued.
“I’m not sure it would work like that,” Anna responded.
The trio continued to debate what the best course of action was, unaware that they were being watched. The dungeon crafter was not one who liked to use violence for its dungeons. It preferred cunning, wit, and intelligence. It tended to create dungeons that challenged wisdom and intellect over strength and brawn. The rooms it created were all tailored to puzzle solving any wrong solution to the puzzle would have dangerous repercussions.
It watched as the group argued which way to go. It was not sure it could feel joy being a being of cosmic power, but the male being was right. There was a correct pathway to complete this dungeon; one of its purposes was to cause discourse amongst the party that entered the dungeon. It was succeeding.
“Do you have a better idea?” Levi asked.
“No,” Anna said reluctantly.
“Let’s try it,” Piper said.
“How do you propose we get down there?” Anna asked.
“Anza and the drones,” Levi said. “Willow lead the way.” Two drones materialized out of Levi; they were smaller than Anza, but the two girls could fit just fine. The three mimics created a saddle and used some tentacles as reigns. It was a bit awkward at first, but everyone was able to get it down. Walking down the side of the platform, Willow led the group to the hardest door. Levi, being a cautious man, conjured some orbs of fire in case of any unwanted attacks. It hadn’t taken them long before they reached the door.
Levi got off Anza and examined the door. It was similar to the one that allowed them to enter into the dungeon itself. He pressed his hand against, and a prompt appeared.
Path of Most Resistance
This is the hardest path you can choose to complete the dungeon. Would you like to continue? Yes/No?
“What do y’all think?” Levi asked.
“I’ll follow you Levi,” Piper said without hesitation.
“What she said without the flirting,” Anna responded.
Levi shook his head and chuckled. He acknowledged yes, and the door melted into the floor.
Ice Stone Caverns: Progress Made
Room One - Completed
Reward: Added to final treasure
The team entered the small room that was in between the next dungeon room. The group hadn’t needed to rest as the first room was not that challenging. Entering through the door they appeared in a hallway. The hallway had many doors on each side. The floor was covered in ice and the doors were made of white wood. Levi pushed his senses out to each door and found nothing notable to report. One at a time they opened the doors. The first door had nothing inside, the second and third doors did as well. By the time they reached the fifth door they found a button on the ground.
“A button,” Anna said. “What kind of dungeon is this?”
“It’s a puzzle dungeon,” Levi said. “If that is a thing.”
“I’ve never heard of it, but it doesn’t mean it’s not,” Piper said.
“Hmm” Anna mused. “That would make sense. Lead the way.” Piper looked at Anna with raised eyebrows. “What?” she asked.
“You’re giving up leadership position?” Piper responded. “I’m just surprised. I’m proud but surprised.”
“Levi has the highest wisdom and knew it was a puzzle, it is the logical choice,” Anna defended.
“Not to derail the conversation,” Levi interrupted. “What does my wisdom have to do with anything?”
“Surely you’ve noticed by now that your attributes have been having an effect on your body?” Anna said. Levi frowned and shook his head. “Oh brother,” she said shaking her head in turn. “Each of the attributes increase something related to your body. Strength to your muscles, vitality to your bones and organs, stamina to your lungs, heart, and nervous system, speed to your muscles, reaction, and senses, wisdom to your brain and memory. In short, each attribute boosts something about your body. The higher the attribute the better or stronger that specific feature is. This is why being a 5-star essentially means you’re immortal because your body is not beyond the reaches of normal limits.”
“I see,” Levi said. “That makes a lot of sense. Apart from wisdom, I did these things called escape rooms back on my old world. They were these interactive rooms with a bunch of puzzles that you had to solve before time ran out.”
“What happens when time runs out,” Piper asked.
“You lose,” Levi said. Piper frowned.
“That’s not that exciting,” she replied.
“It is if you hate losing,” Levi responded.
“Can we get out focus back please,” Anna snapped.
“Sorry,” the pair said at the same time.
“I don’t feel smarter,” Levi said.
“Give it time,” Anna said. “It’s less about intelligence and more about processing power, logic, and memory. When we’re not in a dungeon I can explain more.”
“Right,” Levi said. “Okay so this is door number five that we saw the button. Let’s go check the others.” The trio all checked their own doors, no other door had a button in it. It was only door number five. Retracing their steps to the fifth door, Levi opened the door and pushed the button. Several sounds could be heard all throughout the hallway. Levi walked back into the hallway and could not see any difference.
He went to the door the labelled as number six and noticed that it had two buttons. He left that room as it was and went to another door, he found two more buttons. Levi examined each button; they were simple one was green one was red. Every bone in Levi’s body was telling him to press the green button. Green was safe, green meant go. Red was bad, red meant stop or danger. But there was something that was causing hesitation.
“What is it?” Piper asked.
“What does green mean?” Levi asked.
“It’s the color of will, envy, and disgust,” Anna said.
“Or life, nature, and peace.” Piper interjected.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“What does red mean?” Levi asked.
“Love, life force, blood,” Piper said.
“Danger, fire, destruction,” Anna answered.
“You two are a match made in heaven,” Levi chuckled. After considering the polarizing differences in the answers he pushed the red button. More sounds of shifting gears could be heard in the hallway. Levi looked and saw that there were significantly less doors. At first there were probably 26 doors, thirteen on each side. Now there were six in total. They each examined a door. The odd doors all have three buttons, the even doors had four buttons. Levi scratched his head trying to understand the pattern. What were these doors and buttons teaching him?
“This doesn’t make sense,” Levi said.
“What do you mean?” Anna asked.
“There is no pattern to the buttons,” Levi responded. “Why did door five only have one gray button, then room six have two colored buttons. After pushing the button in room five all doors remained but after pushing red in room six only six buttons remained. Now the colors are either green, grey, red, or green, grey, red, and blue.”
The girls stopped to consider. They hadn’t noticed a pattern either, but they thought that it was likely because they had no idea what was going on. Levi thought harder about what he was experiencing. Focusing on his memory, his recall, he noticed how much easier this had been now than before. Levi thought about the doors, the hallways, and the rooms, had he noticed anything about the rooms that could have tipped him off. He got an idea. The buttons in the room had been placed in a specific manner.
“I got it,” Levi said. Levi went to the room that had the buttons in the order of green on the left, gray on the floor in the middle, red on the right. Levi pushed the buttons in the order that he had pressed the other ones, there was a loud shift and a chime.
Levi walked back into the hallway to see a vast cavern room. Levi’s excitement that they had beaten the hallway puzzle faded quickly as they were put into a room full of monsters. The monsters were all asleep, Levi didn’t even know that monsters slept.
“That’s a lot of Lizardsaurs,” Anna whispered. “At least 50, definitely more.”
“What are they?” Levi asked.
“2-star rank,” Piper responded. “Usually decent to fight on their own but in packs they are deadly.”
Lizardsaurs looked like a mixture of a velociraptor and a common wall lizard. They walked on all fours, but each paw had the vicious velociraptor claws that they are famous for. They were just bigger than Komodo dragons, like Komodo dragons their bites were full of flesh melting acid.
“Fun,” Levi said. “They seem to be asleep,” as Levi said that a group of ten eyes shot open and began growling. “Or not.”
Levi took out his staff and conjured orbs of chaos, without waiting he sent the orbs to attack the waking monsters. Anza followed the orbs as well to begin her assault. Piper started throwing her knives that were mixed with water magic. As the knives landed, they would create a small explosion of water. The water didn’t harm the monsters, but it did provide some water for Anna’s spells. Instead of having to conjure water her spells would be much more effective if she had water available.
“Vicious Tides,” Anna chanted. The water that was at the feet of the monsters began to rise and engulf a few at a time. The lizardsaurs were trapped in a tidal wave of water and were repeatedly getting slammed into a wall, until they fell limp, lifeless.
The orbs of chaos that Levi had sent each made a direct impact with the monsters and killed them instantly. Levi looked on in shock as he hadn’t expected anything like that to happen. The commotion of the battle, naturally, woke up the other monsters. Levi had sent out a few more of team emberites to go attack with Willow and try to control the aggressive monsters. The team was fighting in sync. Piper’s speed was unmatched as she would run through enemies slashing them with her swords. She would keep throwing her water knives at lizardsaurs that were further away so Anna could continue her assault with the water spells.
Levi and his familiars were a force to be reckoned with. He never really engaged in hand-to-hand combat, but he could with his staff from the lessons of Piper. Levi gave a silent thanks to Piper that she had given him those lessons. He was able to attack and defend from the lizardsaurs with his staff. The runes of differing effects sparkled as he was attacking or defending. Anza was her own beast. Her lashing tentacles would stab multiple enemies at a time, and she would lift them, then slam them into the ground.
There was not much to see when it came to Willow. The crystal wisp would split into many smaller versions of itself and engulf the enemies. At its current rank it could only manage enough bodies to engulf one monster at a time. The more it ranked up the bigger its body would get and the more it could split. This is how wisps would grow. The devastating thing about Willow was if one of its bodies were able to catch something on fire and it was able to burn without the entity being there it would be able to leave and attack elsewhere. That is how the wisps became all devouring beasts. Any organic flammable materials would allow the wisp to continue its destructive warpath. Unfortunately for the party, lizardsaurs were not flammable; they could burn but they wouldn’t catch fire, which means that Willow was restricted to one monster at a time.
The monsters were numerous but not very powerful. The team was able to keep them in smaller packs and not let all fifty attack at once. Once the final monster fell, a portal opened up where the last monster had been. They were exhausted. Anna’s mana was nearly all gone as her spells were mana intensive and she had to use them multiple times over. Piper’s stamina was running very low as she had sprinted from monster pack to monster pack at an incredible pace. Levi’s mana and stamina were sapped dry as well. He had not done too many spells but some of Team Ember and team Willow were destroyed by the lizardsaurs. To reconstitute each of the destroyed familiar bodies required some mana usage.
Levi had engaged in more physical combat than he had expected but was grateful for his staff. The runes that were on there provided significant boosts to his attacks. He could feel that he could become quite proficient in attacking with the staff as his main weapon. The party entered the portal into their rest room. All three of them lay sprawled out on the icy floor gasping for air.
“That was tough,” Levi said.
“That was a good battle though,” Anna said.
“Was that the third or fourth room?” Piper asked.
“That was the second still,” Levi said. “It was a response to pushing the buttons. We still have three more to go.”
“Ugh,” Piper groaned as she rolled onto her side.
Multiple Enemies Defeated - Lizardsaurs
Loot: 10 Gold Pieces, 100 Silver Pieces, 1000 Copper Pieces
Loot: Lizard Claws
Loot: Lesser Mana Potion x5
Loot: Lesser Health Potion x5
Loot: Lesser Stamina Potion x5
Ice Stone Caverns: Progress Made
Room Two - Completed
Reward: Added to final treasure
Status: Progression Made
Plus 35 to Wisdom
Plus 10 to Speed
Plus 10 to Vitality
Plus 15 to Strength
Attributes Total: 670
Strength 75
Stamina 65
Speed 71
Vitality 109
Wisdom 350
Levi looked at Piper; she had fallen asleep. Anna was also asleep, as her mana was too low for her recovery. Levi felt that familiar feeling of a rank-up. It was strange; he felt like he had been fully refreshed and fully charged. Any aches or pains were corrected and disappeared. His bones and joints felt stronger and heavier. Levi never really had to think about how his bones felt before magic. He had to admit, he was not a fan. He did enjoy the fact that he didn’t have any soreness from achy hips, or knee pain anymore the more he ranked up.
Levi felt his body once again correct itself to be a little closer to the perfection of a human body. He wondered if this made him more attractive; his hunch was gone, his spine was aligned, he stood a little bit taller, and his body was a little more filled out. Levi watched as 2-stars shot out of his core and morphed into three. Three golden stars were in front of him for a brief second before retreating back into his core. 3-star. The rank where most people stopped. The rank where life expectancy was doubled from this point forward; most people would no longer continue to be an adventurer, retire early, and live a safe and long life.
Status: Levi Winters has ranked up
Levi Winters has gained his third star.
All abilities gain an extra effect.
Class Evolution
Summoner has evolved into Familiar Summoner
Familiar Summoner
Class
Legendary
You have shown to have the heart of friendship. Your soul has become a safe haven for all types of familiars. Your style of combat is developed in trusting your familiars to be able to fight for you. Familiar Summoners increase the amount of familiars are allowed per rank by 2. Familiar Summoners have an increased bond with their familiars automatically at maximum strength. Familiar Summoners will have an additional bonus given per summoned Familiar.
Familiar Mimic has ranked up
Mimic is now 3-star
Summoner can now summon an additional 100 drones.
Mimic Alpha Anza has gained the ability… Adaptability
Anytime a drone is killed in combat, Mimic Alpha Anza can now employ the same form of attack that caused the death of the drone.
Familiar Summoner additional bonus: mimics now add a passive defensive effect, the more drones are fused with the summoner, the higher the summoner’s vitality is. This is an artificial rank up meaning the bonus does not apply to the total attribute count.
Familiar Crystal Wisp has ranked up
Willow is now 3-star
An additional Crystal Wisp can be summoned.
Crystal Wisps additional bonus: Crystal Wisps now adds a passive mana effect. Crystal wisps have increased the mana pool of the summoner by two. The more Crystal Wisps are summoned the larger the pool becomes.
Ability: Ritualist
Ritualists are able to use skill books, use ritual magic, and create their own summoning and ritual circles with minimal materials needed. Base Mana pool is significantly larger. 2-star effect: Able to use magical items to create ritual circles in the air. Able to use magical items to create runes in the air. 3-Star effect: Able to create summoning circles at a fraction of the cost.
Ability: Elected Stranger
You have been accepted into a guild in a new world with new things. Elected Stranger gives you the ability to understand the world from a chosen perspective. Allows quests and objectives—2-star effect: Can now view rarity of items. 3-Star effect: ???
Ability: Familiar Bond
You have unlocked the ability to summon familiars. Familiars are summoned creatures that bond with the user. They only need to be summoned once unless destroyed in combat, then, they will need to be resummoned. Different familiars provide different bonuses to the summoner. 2-star effect: capacity for familiars has increased from one to two. Additionally, bonds with all current or future familiars will be established quicker and deeper. 3-Star effect: Class Evolution, capacity for familiars has increased from two to four.
Character Log: Levi Winters
Class: Familiar Summoner
Rank: 3-star
Ability: Ritualist
Ability: Elected Stranger
Ability: Familiar Bonds
Ability: Locked
Ability: Locked
Spell Log:
Orb of Chaos
Orb of Water
Orb of Fire
Orb of Lightning
Familiars:
Anza the Mimic
Willow the Crystal Wisp